Everyday Heroes
by quicksilversquared
Summary: Marinette is always looking for ways to help, whether it be with bringing a student's concerns to the principal as class president, mending a torn jacket, or stepping up to babysit. For her second Heroes Day as a superhero, though, she's going the extra distance so that she can help even more in emergencies. ft. Everyday Superhero Marinette and her fabulous influence on the class.


When the second Heroes Day of her superhero career came around, Marinette was no less taken off guard than she had been the first time. The days had blurred past in a blur of school, superheroing, and trying to balance the two with extracurricular activities, and so it _really_ wasn't her fault for maybe thinking that it was another week away, maybe, or maybe a month.

This time, though, Marinette had a good deed in mind, something that she had been considering for a while now but hadn't actually gotten around to doing yet. Which was good, because once again, her teacher was putting everyone on the spot by asking them what they would be doing to give back to the city or at least the community around them.

And once again, expectations for her would no doubt be high.

"And Marinette?" Ms. Bustier asked, smile expectant as she turned to her. "What is your good deed this year?"

Marinette smiled, sitting up straighter as she answered. "This year, I've decided to take a CPR and First Aid class from the Red Cross so that I can know what to do in an emergency!" She wouldn't be administering first aid during an akuma attack, of course- Ladybug needed to have her priorities, of course, and while there were other people who knew first aid or could at least figure it out in Paris, there were only so many superheroes in the city- but it might come in handy during babysitting or if she happened across any emergencies during her day-to-day life. "And I want to talk to the instructor about possibly doing a class here at school, too, because the more people there are who know how to react in an emergency, the better!"

Ms. Bustier looked impressed. "That's a very good idea, Marinette! That reminds me that _I_ need to get recertified, too- I took a class a few years ago, but I think the certification only lasts for two years or so."

Marinette nodded. That was right. It hadn't sounded like a particularly long time to her, but the site had explained that it was necessary, since people tended to forget information over time and had to be refreshed so that they could act quickly and safely.

"Perhaps you could do a presentation on what you learned after you've taken the class," Ms. Bustier suggested. "You probably can't do specifics, since people need to learn that from a certified instructor, but what people might do to help?"

Marinette nodded eagerly. It would get her classmates interested, which was a good thing. Even if she couldn't get a class at the school- maybe one with a discount, because those classes were _not_ cheap and some students might not be willing or able to pay that much- then there was the chance that people wouldn't be quite as intimidated by the concept as before and would go seek out a class on their own. Then _they_ could help people who got injured during akuma attacks, patching up scrapes and sprains and cuts that they got while trying to flee from the akumas.

"That training is a good deed that can keep on giving," Ms. Bustier finished, smiling. "Thank you, Marinette. Now Alya, what is _your_ good dead for Heroes Day?"

* * *

Marinette hadn't even taken her class yet, and already she was generating some interest. Several of her classmates had told her how cool it was that she was taking the course, and Rose had announced that she wanted to take it, too. Even Adrien had come up and told her that it wasn't something that he had thought of before, but he was definitely interested in the idea of learning first aid and being able to help out if something happened.

"You're _definitely_ our class's Everyday Ladybug," he added with a grin. "Always looking for ways to help. I don't think anyone else had even thought of getting certified before, but I know there's more people than just me who are thinking about taking the class now. I'm really interested in hearing what all you learn about!"

Of course, before she could tell Adrien what she learned, Marinette actually had to take the class first. While she had been thinking about it for a while now, she hadn't done _that_ much digging yet- she hadn't had the _time_\- and what she was finding…

Well, it looked like it might be difficult to manage.

The classes that Marinette was seeing were all pretty long. Like, hours and hours and _hours_. It would be all too easy for an akuma attack to come up during that time, and then she would have to step away and then she wouldn't get her certification. Or an akuma would strike before the class could start, and she would be late and then not be able to take the class, and there would go _that_ fee down the drain, with nothing to show for it.

"There have to be options for people who can't make a ton of space in their schedule," Tikki said as Marinette groaned, face-down on her desk. "I mean, people who work nights or have long shifts or whatever."

"You would _think_ so, but I'm not seeing anything." Already, visions of not being able to fulfill her Heroes Day good dead for the second year in a row were dancing before her eyes, and she slumped further. She shouldn't have added that bit about asking about hosting a class at the school, because now people were going to ask and make sure that she followed up on it. If she hadn't, they would gradually forget, just as everybody _else's_ Heroes Day good deeds were forgotten by the next day. "I'm going to have to take a whole-day class over a weekend or a holiday and just hope for the best."

Above her head, Tikki was still inspecting the screen. "One second- Marinette, can I have the mouse? I want to check something."

Obediently, Marinette's hand slid off of the mouse, giving it over to her kwami. As Tikki swooped down on it, Marinette raised her head up a couple centimeters to watch. Tikki scrolled up, up, up to the top of the page, then clicked on a button labeled _course format_. Immediately, three options popped up: in-person, online, and combo. She clicked.

"It says that fully online doesn't really give full certification," Tikki reported after a second. "But the combo online and in-person _does_, and-" she clicked on the option, then waited for the page to finish loading- "the in-person section of the combo is only an hour long."

Marinette straightened immediately. "Really?"

"Really! That shouldn't be too hard to manage!"

Re-energized, Marinette started checking the dates that Tikki had pulled up. Some she couldn't do- she already missed enough school with akuma attacks, she didn't need to skip on _purpose_\- but others were during her lunch break or after school or on weekends, each only an hour long.

And- even better!- there was a note on each of the class listings that she was looking at, recognizing that sometimes people couldn't get to their scheduled class due to akuma attacks and if that happened, to just call the Paris office's number to reschedule the in-class section without having to repay.

_Perfect_.

"Give yourself plenty of time to do the online section!" Tikki reminded Marinette as she continued scrolling through the times and dates, completely eager and reenergized. "You have class and projects and outings with your friends and superhero-ing to do already, and you're going to need to take notes as you go for your presentation to the class."

"Right." Marinette scanned the list again, mentally striking some of the options out. If she went too soon, she would have to rush through the online section. If she waited too long… well, Chloe would no doubt make a Big Deal out of it, claiming that she was trying to back out of her good deed for the second year in the row.

Which was unfair, really- Chloe's good deed was always something dumb that any _normal_ person would do automatically, like 'not insulting others'. It never involved any effort or extra time on her part. And Marinette had _tried_ the previous year, she really had, but…

Well, even the best intentions didn't always work out.

"Maybe I can do just over two weeks out," Marinette decided. "There's one over lunch break that has lots of spaces, and it doesn't cost nearly as much as some of the others. I'll ask Maman to sign me up for it later."

"That sounds good!" Tikki agreed. "Just over two weeks gives you three weekends. As long as you don't over-commit yourself, you should be fine!"

"Well, you know me," Marinette said with a laugh. "I like overcommitting myself. It's not a busy time of the year in classes, at least. That helps."

"Good!" Tikki spun in a circle, then flew down to perch on Marinette's shoulder. "Okay, so now that that's sorted out- do you want to start on your homework, on start making up a slideshow for your presentation? You could put some stats on the first slide or two as a lead-in!"

"Homework, I think," Marinette said with a laugh. "That has a deadline, and the PowerPoint doesn't. But that's a good suggestion, Tikki! Thanks!"

* * *

In a stroke of good luck, Marinette finished up the online section of the course with plenty of time and there were no akumas in sight as she headed into the building where her course was. She had a no-nonsense notepad tucked into her bag with all of her notes from the online portion and a whole array of pens and pencils, plus a couple index cards with her contact information in case the instructor thought that running a course at the collège would be possible (one to hand over, two extras in case the first one got misplaced). Marinette was ready for this.

Marinette was _not_ ready to see Adrien Agreste already sitting in one of the seats around the table, his own notebook already in hand.

"Hi, Marinette!" Adrien said happily, lighting up when he saw her. He patted the seat next to himself in invitation, and Marinette sat, unable to resist. "I hope you don't mind me copying your Heroes Day idea. I just thought it was a really, really good idea and then you mentioned when you were going and that this type of class format lets you do a lot of the work ahead of time and how you could reschedule if there was an akuma attack and I don't get out to do this sort of thing often so I thought it would be less intimidating if I did it with a friend, so here I am," he finished, sounding a bit out of breath and more than a little anxious.

Marinette smiled at him. She couldn't deny that having a friend here made things less intimidating for her, too. "That's fine! It _is_ nice to have a familiar face here. And maybe it'll help our cause when I ask about if they could do a class at the collège, if it's not just one of us."

Adrien grinned, relaxing at once. "Okay! I thought that maybe I should have asked you first, but I had already signed up and everything and I couldn't figure out the cancellation stuff."

"No, no, it's fine!"

It didn't take long for their instructor to show up, checking each of them off and making sure that they had completed their online section. Then she started, and Marinette had to hunker down and focus, taking a few notes as review before they moved to the back to practice some of the skills.

As they moved, Adrien stuck close to Marinette's side, anxiously hovering as the instructor pulled out the CPR dummies and demonstrated what they were meant to be doing. Once she had finished a few cycles, she stood back up and told them to partner up and sit down by a dummy.

"Partners?" Adrien asked hopefully, tapping on Marinette's shoulder. Marinette nodded, catching his arm as she moved forward to claim one of the dummies. Their instructor headed around, handing out little kits to each of them.

"This has a _practice_ breathing mask," she told them as she handed one bag to Adrien and another to Marinette. "Don't use them on a real person, they wouldn't provide the protection that a proper one-way one would."

"I'm not gonna lie, when I signed up I was worried that we might be practicing the mouth-to-mouth on each other," Adrien admitted, leaning over so he was speaking directly in Marinette's ear. "And I got an _embarrassingly_ long way into the online section before I realized that there was no way we would be doing that."

Marinette giggled. "Yeah, I think we would have a _really_ hard time getting our classmates to go if they had to do mouth-to-mouth on each other. There's cooties, you know."

The pouty stink-eye that Adrien sent her made Marinette muffle another round of giggles.

With Adrien there to talk to, the class flew by in a flash. Marinette made sure to take plenty of notes, even though a lot of it was information that they had already covered online. She _did_ take particular note, though, of a couple phone apps that she could download that would help her remember what to do in case of an emergency.

Another thing that might help make the class seem more approachable to others. If people had any worries that they might not be able to remember well enough to help out in an emergency, that should help.

"I'm glad I took this," Adrien told Marinette as the class came to a close and everybody started packing up. "It's well worth the price. Are we going to talk to the instructor now?"

"Yeah, once people have cleared away a bit." Marinette glanced around the room. There were several people lingering near the instructor, clearly wanting to ask for clarification about one thing or another. "Because my question will probably take longer than most of the others, and it's not about what we learned in class." She looked at the slowly dwindling line of stragglers, then at the clock, and winced. "Hopefully we'll still have time to eat. I didn't ask Mom if she could make anything for me, since I wasn't sure when I would be getting back."

Adrien perked up. "I was planning on going to a little cafe nearby after this. Want to come with? My treat!"

"Sure!"

"Well, it's nice to see young faces here," their instructor said, coming up to them once the last of the line had left, waving as they went. "We don't see young people often. Did you guys have a question for me?"

"I do," Marinette said, hopping up at once and hoping that she didn't look too flustered. She was Ladybug. She could do this. "I signed up for this class as my good deed for Heroes Day, and there was a lot of interest in it in my class. I'll be doing a presentation during class to try to drum up interest again, and I was wondering if there would be some way to set up a session at the school so that more of my classmates could learn, too."

Their instructor surveyed the two of them, looking a little doubtful. "Well…"

"I'm one of her classmates," Adrien spoke up, getting up as well. "And there really _is_ a lot of interest. I decided to come outside of class, too, and it was all because Marinette brought up the idea. And I know some of our classmates are a little intimidated by the idea of signing up on their own, but they _are_ interested in learning how to be able to respond in an emergency."

"I mean, they _could_ coordinate to come out as a group." Their instructor didn't look entirely convinced. "They might need to schedule for a bit out, since otherwise classes tend to only have a small handful of openings."

"Part of the concern is transportation, I think," Marinette said quickly, even as her gut sank. She had so hoped that this would go off smoothly, but it was starting to look like that was misplaced hope. "It seems like all of the classes that we could get to during lunch break or after school are over here, and it's clear across the city from our school. We're all collège students, so we rely on public transportation. If we miss the bus over because class went late or we couldn't get to the bus stop on time or the bus was late, we don't have other options."

"I'll run the idea past my supervisor," their instructor finally promised. "I'll see what he thinks. Do you have contact information for, ah, your teacher? Or principal?"

"I have _my_ contact info," Marinette said immediately, feeling a little nettled. "I'm class president, I can pass on information to my teacher."

"She's the best class president I've ever seen," Adrien said loyally, and Marinette resisted the urge to blush. He was just trying to back her up, she shouldn't read too far into it. "She's the one who came up with the idea, too."

Their instructor sighed. "All right. If a session at your school is feasible, he'll email."

"Thank you," Marinette said quickly, hoping she didn't sound too let down. She pulled out one of her prepared cards. "This is my email."

Several minutes later, she and Adrien were headed out of the building. Marinette couldn't help the dejected drag to her step. She had _so_ hoped to come back to class today with a strong "maybe" at the very least, _ideally_ a 'yes'. Instead, they got a _very_ doubtful 'maybe'.

"I thought she was being pretty rude," Adrien told Marinette as they headed down the street. "I mean, they _want_ more people certified, right? And I'm sure Mr. Damocles could get a grant to pay for people who are interested to get certified but they can't pay. It's just that this isn't a very convenient location."

"It's _really_ not," Marinette agreed. "I had to rush to get here, because the bus was late." That was a half-lie, actually- she had had to transform and finish the trek as Ladybug, because the midday traffic in Paris had slowed the bus to a crawl. But even though it would have made her points a _lot_ stronger, she couldn't just go and _say_ that. "And the one after school would have the same problem, I bet. And there _are_ weekend options, but people have stuff going on."

Adrien nodded. "Right. And it looked like those sessions fill up first, too, so people could have trouble getting in with their friends." He snagged her arm, tugging her towards a small cafe. "Is Greek okay?"

Marinette managed a bright smile for him. "That sounds fantastic."

It didn't take long for the two of them to order their food and get settled on stools at a counter by the window. By the time they received their food, Marinette was starting to come up with a new plan of attack.

Getting a class set up at the school had never been a given, she had known that. But there was so much interest that she couldn't just _not_ do anything to encourage her classmates to follow through with the training. So maybe they could set their sights on a class that was a ways out- during the summer, maybe- and try to organize so that no one would be going on their own. She knew from experience that sometimes all someone needed was another person to walk them through something- in this case, the sign-up process- to do something like this, so she could _still_ help. She was about to say as much when a blinking light caught her eye. Marinette glanced at her phone just out of habit, then did a double-take when she caught sight of the email she had received. In a sudden scramble, she set her gyro down and dove for her phone again, catching it just as the screen dimmed and opening up the email.

"What is it?" Adrien asked, craning his neck to try to see. "Mari?"

"I got an email from the first aid people!" Marinette said excitedly, pushing her phone over so Adrien could read it, too. "And look!"

_Dear Ms. Dupain-Cheng,_

_Our CPR/AED/First Aid instructor Linda Ricky mentioned your inquiry about having a session at your collège so that more students could get their certification and be ready to respond in case of an emergency. We would certainly be interested in setting up such a session, as we want to get the younger generation involved in our training efforts. We can offer a mixed-format course at a reduced rate for students. Before we set anything up, I would like to know how many students would be interested so that we know if we would need more than one session set up. We can go with either the full CPR/AED/First Aid course or just First Aid depending on interest._

_Thank you for joining us and I hope to hear from you soon!_

"Oh, they're _super_ interested," Adrien said with a laugh, pushing Marinette's phone back to her. "Good job, Marinette. So what's the next step?"

"Well, I need to get back to them by this evening at the latest," Marinette said, already starting to brainstorm. "Thanking them and trying to get a timeline set up for when I'll get back to them. I need to talk to Ms. Bustier and see when there's time for my presentation. It's mostly ready, I think, I just need to polish it up. And then I need to make sign-up sheets, and those will be up for probably a week. And if we want students from other classes to know about it, that'll probably take more presentations or fliers or something."

Adrien let out a low whistle. "That's a _lot_. If I can help out with _anything_, Marinette, just let me know." He grinned. "After all, even an Everyday Ladybug can probably use an Everyday Chat Noir to help out."

* * *

Much to Marinette's relief, getting things all lined up for her presentation wasn't anywhere as much work as she had worried. With Adrien's help, she got things polished up and ready to go within a couple days. Ms. Bustier shifted a few things around so that Marinette could so her presentation, and that all went smoothly.

"Before they arrange anything, we need to know who would actually be interested," Marinette told the class at the end of the presentation. "So I have a sign-up sheet that I'll be posting on the whiteboard here, and then I have fliers, too- these were Adrien's idea, so we can get other classes interested, too." Marinette waved one of the aforementioned fliers. She had taken a fairly standard flier for the course and modified it, making it clear that they were hoping to have an opportunity to have the course at the school and where interested parties should sign up. She had also tacked on a FAQ with information answering the questions that she and Adrien had thought up. "I'm hoping to get one in as many classrooms as possible. Obviously there might be some classes here who are too young to take the class yet, so we don't need to get those classrooms, but I'm hoping to make sure that everyone who's old enough to take the class at least _knows_ about the opportunity."

"I can pass those around in the teacher's lounge, Marinette," Ms. Bustier said at once. "That was a very nice presentation, and I hope all of you at least give this opportunity some consideration. It's very possible that none of you will ever need to use any of the skills that you learn during the class, but it's wonderful if you're prepared! It really can save a life."

Marinette beamed as her classmates clapped, unable to resist the urge to duck her head bashfully as she hung up the sign-up sheet and headed back to her seat. Adrien offered her a high-five and she complied with a grin.

"Can we sign up now?" Alya asked at once, sticking her hand up in the air. "Or do we have to wait until the end of class?"

"Well, if you _want_ to sign up now while I set up our lesson for today, you're certainly welcome to," Ms. Bustier told her. "If you need some time to think about it-"

She was cut off as _easily_ half of the class got up, rushing to the front with pencils in hand to sign up. Others were clearly still considering the option. Marinette couldn't hide her grin as she watched. She had suspected that there would be a lot of interested people in her class, just based off of the response after she mentioned it the first time. But _this_ was incredible.

Maybe only Ladybug and Chat Noir could end akuma fights, but with so many students trained to help out others- maybe, just maybe, they could help make the battles just a little bit safer.

* * *

_a/n: yes, this is 100% a result of what happens when I have to renew my certification and we had a slow day at work beforehand :D I'm sure that there are all sorts of little injuries that people in ML-verse Paris get while fleeing from akumas and that not necessarily all of them get cured afterwards (if, say, an evacuation gets a little panicky and someone trips and falls, but it's not DIRECTLY akuma-related), so people knowing how to deal with that would be helpful. (Also, I'm not a fan of Ms. Bustier's put-people-on-the-spot questioning, can you tell?)_

_As with most of my stories, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete. And as always, reviews make my day! :)_


End file.
